പേജുകള്‍‌

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski (My Summer of Love), this story of faith
and despair is gracefully told, its simple, uncluttered spaces and
luminous black-and-white photography harking back to Robert Bresson.
Innocent young Ida (Agata Trzebuchowska), raised in a Polish convent and
preparing to take her vows, is persuaded by the Mother Superior to make
contact with her only known relative, an aunt (Agata Kulesza) who
reveals to the young novitiate that her father was Jewish and her
parents both died in the Nazi occupation. Hoping to uncover the details,
the two women set off for the family's hometown, where the romantic
attentions of a handsome young sax player in the hotel bar prove almost
as troubling to Ida as her parents' demise.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Radom under Nazi occupation at the end of World War II. After the tragic
death of her mother a young girl, Janina, lives alone with her father a
photographer. He decides to give shelter to a young Jewish girl,
Esther, the daughter of his friend who has been hiding in a small room
under the floor. Initially Janina rebels against this situation, but
soon begins to take an interest in the involuntary tenant. Gradually,
curiosity turns into fascination. One day Janina’s father is arrested in
street roundup and now Janina has to look after Esther alone. The young
women start to live in almost complete isolation from the outside
world: loneliness and fear bring them closer and closer. Mutual dramatic
experiences make their relationship more intimate. When the war ends
Janina hides the news from Ester and continues to keep her in hiding as
her erotic fascination with Esther turns into an obsession.

Towards the end of World War II, people in big cities are at the mercy
of air raids and death by starvation. A desperate young mother leaves
her 13-year-old twin sons at their grandmother's house in the country,
despite the fact that this grandmother is a cruel and bestial alcoholic.
The villagers call her “the Witch” because she is rumoured to have
poisoned her husband long ago.

Previously pampered, the twins must learn how to survive alone in their
new, rural surroundings. They realise that the only way to cope with the
absurd and inhumane world of adults and war is to become completely
unfeeling and merciless. By learning to free themselves from hunger,
pain and emotion, they will be able to endure future hardships. So they
begin their own series of studies: they fortify their spirits by reading
the Bible and learning foreign languages. They practice every day to
harden their bodies and minds. They hold their hands over flames, cut
their legs, arms and chests with a knife and pour alcohol right on their
wounds. They desensitize themselves to insults and learn to ignore the
more insidious appeals of sentiment and love.

The twins keep a written record of all they have witnessed during the
war, the Notebook. When they write, they follow their own strict code:
The prose must be free from emotion, the notes precise and objective.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Focused on a director and his leading actress while they are off the
set. They discuss the discrepancies between film and digital cinema,
Western and Eastern food, and try to capture an unfiltered (and
seemingly impossible) sense of "reality" on film.

As a leader of the local community, Chairman Amin bans every kind of
image in his water-locked village in rural Bangladesh. He even goes on
to claim that imagination is also sinful since it gives one the license
to infiltrate into any prohibited territory. But change is a desperate
wind that is difficult to resist by shutting the window. The tension
between this traditional window and modern wind grows to such an extent
that it starts to leave a ripple effect on the lives of a group of
typically colorful, eccentric, and emotional people living in that
village. But at the very end of the film, Television, which he hated so
much, comes to the rescue and helps Chairman Amin reach a transcendental
state where he and his God are unified. A new twist to the story makes
him embrace IMAGE and IMAGINATION